Maserati Quattroporte

In Italian it means “four doors,” but you don’t need to speak the language to know that the Quattroporte’s curvy sheetmetal and wailing engines promise a sedan with a flair for the dramatic. There are two models: the S Q4 has a 404-hp 3.0-liter V-6 and all-wheel drive, while the GTS has a 523-hp 3.8-liter V-8 and rear-wheel drive; both have twin turbos and eight-speed automatics. Inside, the leather is sumptuous; Chrysler’s Uconnect is a plus, but the interior’s parts-bin switchgear is not. Instrumented Test – 2015 Maserati Quattroporte GTS

2015 Maserati Quattroporte GTS

Can this Italian sedan make you forget it has four doors?

Here at C/D, each editor drives 200 to 250 cars every year. We see a bunch of BMWs, a plethora of Porsches, and a ton of Toyotas. You get the idea. When it comes to Maseratis, it’s a different story—and one that usually involves us traveling thousands of miles to far-flung locations to get behind the wheel.

So there was understandably a bit of a buzz at C/D headquarters when Maserati handed over the ingot-like fob to a 2015 Quattroporte GTS, looking understated in its Nero paint and rolling on handsome 20-inch 14-spoke wheels. Up front, Neptune’s trident was set to skewer the lesser traffic that would inevitably cross its path. Anticipation was high.

So was the sticker. At $143,890, the sole option was proximity entry for $290. The north-of-$140K neighborhood is a swanky one, where the language spoken is predominantly German and populated by the likes of the Audi S8, the BMW 760Li, and the Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG. We expect a sedan that speaks Italian to provide more than the mighty performance and luxury of those Teutonic powerhouses—it should offer a flair for the dramatic, with swooping lines that make priests get all sweaty and a yowling engine note that floods the brain with deeply satisfying hits of dopamine.

The operative word here is “should.” Let’s start with the exterior design, which is undoubtedly handsome but a few lumens short of spectacular. The promise of the trident-bearing grille fades once you reach the front fenders, where the trademark (and functional) portholes are punched through sheetmetal that isn’t as athletic or as taut as that of the last-gen Quattroporte. And hope for a bespoke interior was doused by prosaic switchgear raided from the Chrysler mother ship. The engine-start button and door-panel-mounted controls likely won’t offend owners who have never been inside a Chrysler product—which is probably most, if not all of them. But it’s a bit of obvious bean-counting that you don’t get in, say, luxury products from the Volkswagen Group, the masters of hiding parts-bin-related parsimony.

What about the performance? The twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V-8 makes 523 horsepower and 524 lb-ft of torque, driving the rear wheels through an eight-speed automatic. This powertrain motivates the GTS’s 4653 pounds from zero to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 12.7 seconds at 112 mph; top speed is a drag-limited 182 mph. There’s little drama in achieving those numbers, however, as the turbos muffle the engine note, throttle response is languid (even as the turbos are responsive), and the transmission performs its tasks at a relaxed pace. Pirelli P Zeros (245/40 front, 285/35 rear) contribute to a highly respectable 70–0 braking distance of 150 feet, but the spongy brake pedal lacks the firmness and sensitivity we prefer. On the skidpad, the Quattroporte posted 0.91 g.

While the 2015 base prices and the performance of the BMW 760Li and the Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG 4MATIC are similar to those of this Maser, it is the marauding Audi S8 that storms the ramparts, kicks in the doors, and makes off with the crown. The last S8 we tested boasted powertrain specs that closely parallel the Maserati’s, with a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 that made 520 horsepower and 481 lb-ft. The S8 weighed 4620 pounds, 33 pounds lighter than the GTS despite the S8’s Quattro all-wheel drive.

All-wheel grip probably helped at the track, where the S8 was 0.6-second faster to 60 mph and lit up the quarter in 11.9 seconds at 118 mph. (The Quattroporte S Q4 offers four driven wheels, if that’s what you’re after.) Braking from 70 mph took six feet longer than in this Maserati, at 156 feet, and lateral grip was 0.90 g. More meaningful is the price difference: At $115,825, a 2015 S8 starts some $28K lower than does the GTS.

With the Quattroporte, we were eager to experience the Italian version of luxury and performance, one that spoke a hot-blooded dialect we would feel in our vital organs. While the performance is there, it’s delivered in a package that doesn’t exactly inspire amore.

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